Interest in recycling has drawn attention to many fields in which waste previously went unnoticed. Included among these is the pallet building industry. The wooden and steel pallets in current use not only contribute to shipping costs due to their weight and expensive space consumption, but also create uneconomical waste after use. If the pallets are one-use platforms, they create instant waste after shipment. One-use wooden pallets may take up valuable landfill space or may create pollutants if they have to be burned. If the pallets are reusable they may require return shipment. The wooden pallets are easily damaged after a few uses, which creates further waste.
Use of a paperboard pallet is a ready solution to the above-mentioned problems. However, a pallet made of paperboard must have the necessary structure to be functional yet be able to withstand large loads. A standard pallet consists of an upper pallet deck for contacting a load and pallet legs extending downwardly from the pallet deck. A bottom pallet deck or stringers may be provided for stability of the pallet legs or easier stacking. The pallet legs are spaced such that prongs of a fork lift may be inserted under the upper pallet deck and between the legs to lift the pallet deck.
In order for the pallet leg of a paperboard pallet to give proper support, at least one member of the pallet leg must provide vertical support. However, attaching a pallet leg which includes a member that gives vertical support to the horizontal pallet deck may be difficult and the prior art approaches of attaching pallet legs to the pallet strip have been unsatisfactory. Examples of patents disclosing paperboard pallet assemblies are U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,446,914 to Fallert et al.; 2,503,240 to Cahners; 3,115,105 to Allen; 2,914,282 to Budd; and 2,493,562 to Yarman.
The patents to Cahners, Allen and Fallert create pallet legs with vertical support members by using a sleeve which is attached between pallet decks. The sleeve is oriented so that its axis extends horizontally and the vertical support members are inserted into the sleeve. Cahners shows reinforcing members with diagonal or X-shaped members which are slipped into a sleeve. Similarly, Allen shows a pallet leg in which the sleeve and vertical reinforcing member are formed from a single blank and an X-shaped configuration results. Fallert shows several embodiments; in one of these, an elongate sleeve contains packed, upstanding pieces of board. In other embodiments in Fallert, a length of board is folded in a zig-zag fashion and inserted into the sleeve, with the openings in the zig-zag oriented vertically or horizontally. Although each of these pallet legs provides a modicum of support and stability, when a large amount of weight is applied to the leg, there is a possibility that the members of the pallet legs lending vertical support will buckle or bend. There is a need for a means of supporting these members of the pallet legs to prevent this bending or buckling.
Even if the pallet legs are capable of withstanding the entire load on the pallet deck, unequal distribution of the load on the deck may cause sagging of the deck. Therefore, it is advantageous to be able to strategically position the pallet legs in response to unevenly distributed loads.
Thus, in order to solve the problems encountered in the prior art, a pallet leg must be attached individually to a pallet deck and must give a wide degree of vertical as well as lateral support without bending or buckling. To avoid waste, the pallet needs to be made of a recyclable material and must be recyclable.